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1. Aaberge, Rolf

et al.

Bourguignon, François

Brandolini, Andrea

Ferreira, Francisco H. G.

Gornick, Janet G.

Hills, John

Jäntti, Markus

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).

Jenkins, Stephen P.

Marlier, Eric

Micklewright, John

Nolan, Brian

Piketty, Thomas

Radermacher, Walter J.

Smeeding, Timothy M.

Stern, Nicholas H.

Stiglitz, Joseph

Sutherland, Holly

Tony Atkinson and his Legacy2017In: The Review of Income and Wealth, ISSN 0034-6586, E-ISSN 1475-4991, Vol. 63, no 3, p. 411-444Article in journal (Refereed)

Abstract [en]

Tony Atkinson is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in the classical sense, rejecting any sub-field labelling of his interests and expertise, and he made contributions right across economics. His death on 1 January 2017 deprived the world of both an intellectual giant and a deeply committed public servant in the broadest sense of the term. This collective tribute highlights the range, depth and importance of Tony's enormous legacy, the product of almost fifty years’ work.

Employment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post-release employment prospects. Little is known, however, about whether or not offenders’ employment trajectories before and after imprisonment are similar across countries. As a first step towards filling this gap in research, this paper provides evidence on employment trajectories before and after imprisonment in four Nordic welfare states: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Using data gathered from administrative records on incarcerated offenders, the analysis focuses on individuals imprisoned for the first time and who served a prison sentence less than one year in length. Results show that although employment trajectories develop in mostly similar ways before and after imprisonment across these countries, important differences exist.

One of the most obvious consequences of divorce is the moving out of one or both ex‐partners from the formerly common household. Here we focus on a particular postdivorce residential move, the return to the parental home in Sweden, where intergenerational coresidence is uncommon. We ask whether family dissolution increases the likelihood of intergenerational coresidence among separated/divorced individuals who have at least 1 child below age 18. Furthermore, we ask whether the strength of the effect depends on socio‐economic and geographical factors. Our analysis of 670,777 individuals from Swedish population register data shows that even if living with parents is, in absolute terms, not a common intergenerational support strategy, its likelihood increases considerably after a family dissolution. This event increases the probability of living with one's parents especially among men, those with low incomes, and those who live close to their parent(s). We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on patterns of intergenerational support across Europe.

Using the 1968, 1981, and 2000 Swedish Level of Living Surveys, the authors examine the evolution of the wage distribution in Sweden over the periods 1968–1981 and 1981–2000. The first period was the heyday of the Swedish solidarity wage policy with strong equalization clauses in the central wage agreements. During the second period, there was more flexibility for firms to adjust wages to reflect conditions such as labor shortages in particular fields. The authors find a remarkable narrowing of the wage distribution in the first period, but in the second period, wages grew more equally across the distribution. The authors decompose these changes in wages across the distribution into two components—those due to changes in the distribution of characteristics such as education and experience and those due to changes in the distribution of returns to those characteristics. They find that the wage compression between 1968 and 1981 was driven by changes in the distribution of returns, but between 1981 and 2000, the change in the distribution of returns had less of an effect on wage compression.

9. Albæk, Karsten

et al.

Asplund, Rita

Barth, Erling

Lindahl, Lena

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).

Sweden was early to legalize same-sex partnership (1995), to allow same-sex couples to adopt children (2003), and to offer same-sex couples fertility treatment through the national health system (2005). Using population data, we identify children of lesbian parents as those whose biological mother was a registered same-sex partner no later than six months after the child's birth. The number of such children increased markedly from 1995 to 2010 with a total of 750 children for the whole period. We find that boys and girls with lesbian parents had 2.4 percent lower birth weight than other children, a difference that is statistically significant from zero at the 5 percent level. Girls, but not boys, also have a higher probability of having a low birth weight. We follow these children until age ten and observe diseases of the respiratory system. Boys with lesbian parents have a significantly lower probability of such diseases (-3.4 percentage points), and girls with lesbian parents an insignificantly higher probability (+2.4 percentage points). Our analysis of school outcomes at age ten uses a small sample so precision is low. The point estimates show that boys with lesbian parents outperform other children by around 10 percentiles higher test scores in Math and Swedish. These differences are barely significant, while estimates for girls are lower and not significant. For all outcomes, we find that children with lesbian parents benefit from their mother's socio-economic status, whereas they suffer in terms of birth weight from having been exposed to fertility treatment.

11. Alex-Petersen, Jesper

et al.

Lundborg, Petter

Rooth, Dan-Olof

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).

It is well known that people whose childhoods are characterized by various types of resource deficiencies are at significantly higher risk than others of developing serious drug-abuse. Having confirmed the existence of this correlation in the study's data set, this study asked whether the different childhood conditions experienced by individuals with serious drug-abuse problems continue to affect their life chances once these problems have become established, or whether the drug abuse appears to produce such radically new life conditions that childhood conditions no longer play a significant role. Analyses were based on the Stockholm Birth Cohort study which includes data on a cohort of individuals (n = 15,117) from birth to middle age, and in addition to measurements of social and economic problems during childhood, the analysis also included a measurement of the family's socio-economic status and a measurement of the individual's own childhood resources in the form of school performance. Drug abuse was measured using an indicator of whether the individual had been admitted for inpatient treatment with a drug-related diagnosis at least once at ages 16–30 (n = 229). On basis of Cox and OLS regression models, the most important conclusion from the study was that heavy drug-abuse seems to involve such a fundamental change to individuals' life situation that variations in childhood conditions lose a substantial amount of their power to explain subsequent life course outcomes. However, the study did find a tendency for SES of family of origin to be related to mortality risk up to age 56, in that those from less privileged homes died to a somewhat higher extent. Individuals from more privileged homes did not manage to recover to a higher extent though, but tended to remain in heavy abuse. The study found no relationship between childhood conditions and recovery from heavy abuse.

On an individual level, criminal offending is linked to resource deficiencies. Since evictions tend to affect society’s weakest groups, we would expect evicted individuals to be convicted of crime to a higher degree than others even before eviction. But is there also a direct effect of eviction on criminal convictions? The aim of this study was to isolate the effect of eviction on criminal convictions. Propensity score matching was used and the analyses included all individuals evicted in Sweden from 2009 to 2010 (n = 5050), and a 10% sample of the adult population (n = 770,000). After matching based on relevant background factors, the analyses showed a significant increase in criminal convictions from the year of eviction until the end of the period studied, two to three years later. The pattern was similar for men and women. Future research should investigate eviction in relation to different types of crime.

It is well known, based on previous research, that adolescents' thoughts and feelings about their future are related to the risk of delinquency, alcohol use as well as health. However, other well-known facts are that adolescents' actions are substantially shaped in interaction with peers and that, during adolescence, individuals spend a considerable amount of the day at school, in interaction with classmates. Despite this, there is an almost complete lack of studies exploring to what extent the school climate, as measured by thoughts and feelings about the future, can influence individual adolescents. The aim of the current study is to investigate whether the future orientation (FO) climate, measured at the school class level, is related to delinquency, alcohol use and internalizing problems at the individual level, among a sample of Swedish students 14–15 years of age. The data used come from the Swedish part of the Youth in Europe (YES!) study, which is part of the larger project Children of Immigrants - Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU). In the present paper, we use data from the first wave, collected among 8th grade students in 2010/11 (n = 4119–4364). The method used was multilevel modeling (linear probability models (LPM) and linear regression analysis). The results showed that, in school classes where a high proportion of students had a positive future orientation, the risk of heavy alcohol use at the individual level was lower, also after adjusting for individual FO and for individual- and class-level socioeconomic conditions. A similar, but not statistically significant, tendency was found for delinquency. In addition, having a high proportion of students with a positive FO in a school class was associated with fewer internalizing problems, also after controlling for individual FO and socioeconomic conditions at the individual and school class level. We conclude that the surrounding school class, in terms of its general future orientation climate, may play a role for individual outcomes in the form of problem behaviors and mental health.

The study investigated gender differences in satisfaction with physical appearance as a domain-specific aspect of self-esteem, and its association with global self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints. The data used was from the Stockholm School Survey, conducted among ninth grade students (15–16 years), with pooled information from six cross-sectional surveys in 2004–2014 (n = 32,117). Girls reported lower satisfaction with their appearance than boys. Satisfaction with appearance was more strongly associated with global self-esteem among girls, while the association with psychosomatic complaints was similar for both genders. There was a tendency towards a decline in satisfaction with appearance at the end of the study period for both genders, albeit more strong for girls. We conclude that satisfaction with appearance may contribute to our understanding of poor mental well-being among adolescent girls.

Future orientation (FO) refers to individuals' beliefs and feelings about their future. Earlier research has primarily investigated correlates of FO at the individual and family level, but it seems likely that FO is also shaped by other central agents or institutions, such as the school. Earlier studies have found positive associations between “school effectiveness” and student performance, and negative associations in relation to e.g., bullying, delinquency, and health risk behaviors. The current study investigated three teacher-reported features of school effectiveness - school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos - and their links with student-reported FO.

The analyses showed that higher teacher ratings of school leadership and school ethos were associated with a greater likelihood of reporting an optimistic FO among students. Teacher cooperation and consensus was however not associated with students' FO.

Conclusion

The findings indicate that the school environment contributes to shaping students' beliefs about their future. Thus, enhancing features of school effectiveness may be a way of promoting a positive development and brighter objective future prospects for the young, via pathways such as good student-teacher relations and academic motivation and achievement.

The article analyses aspects of gender composition and social dominance in peer groups and school classes and their effects on the degree of openness to gender-atypical occupations in young adolescents. The data set used contains information for some 13,000 girls and boys living in Stockholm in the early 1960s. Results from multi-level regressions show that gender composition is significantly related to openness to gender-atypical occupations at peer-group level only. As the causal direction of this relationship can be questioned, the result should be interpreted with caution. Concerning aspects of dominance, quite substantive effects on individual openness to gender-atypical occupations are found for girls, albeit not for boys. Thus, for girls, the degree of openness to gender-atypical occupations of the most central girl in the school class significantly affects the degree of openness to gender-atypical occupations of individual girls in that school class.

Bäckman, OlofStockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).Gavanas, AnnaInstitutet för framtidsstudier.Nilsson, AndersStockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Criminology.

The article explores the longitudinal relationship between subjective and objective deprivation in early adolescence on the one hand, and criminal offending in adolescence and early adulthood on the other. Data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study (n = 15,117), containing information from surveys and registers are used. Bivariate analyses confirm a relationship between low socioeconomic status and both subjective and objective deprivation. Subjective deprivation alone is related to offending only for those from less privileged background. Subjective and objective deprivation in combination is associated with a higher risk of offending for all individuals, although the less privileged background, the higher the risk.

The tendency to underestimate the future value of a variable growing at a constant rate, an example of exponential growth bias, has been linked to household financial decision-making. We show that exponential growth bias and standard measures of financial literacy are negatively correlated in a representative sample of Swedish adults. Since financial literacy is linked to household decision-making, our results indicate that examining the relationship between exponential growth bias and household finance without adequate controls for financial literacy may generate biased results.

We use data from the Swedish Financial Supervisory 2010 consumer survey to look at levels of financial literacy and retirement planning in the Swedish population. The results indicate that many adults have low financial literacy. In general, financial literacy levels are lower among the young, the old, women and those with low income or low educational attainment. People who report having tried to plan for retirement have higher levels of financial literacy. In particular, an understanding of risk diversification is strongly correlated with planning for retirement. We relate our findings to features of the Swedish pension system.

Friendships constitute a central feature of childhood, yet little is known about the developmental significance extending beyond childhood and adolescence. The aim of the present study was therefore to investigate the association between childhood friendships and adult outcomes. Since many outcomes in adulthood go hand in hand, the outcome pattern as a whole was targeted. Based on a longitudinal data material consisting of more than 14,000 individuals born in Stockholm in 1953, a cluster analysis of adult circumstances (1992-2007) was first conducted. Second, the association between three indicators of childhood friendships (1966) and the outcome profiles was analysed by means of multinomial regression analysis. The results indicated that children who lacked leisure time friends and a best friend in the school class had increased risks of ending up in the more adverse clusters as adults, whereas the opposite association was found for those who reported being solitary. The effect of childhood friendships was rather consistent across both single and multiple problems, suggesting that the disadvantages of being without friends in childhood do not accumulate over the life course to any large extent. Generally, the results were the same for males and females. It is concluded that childhood friendships are important for adverse circumstances in adulthood, for both genders. As far as the long-lasting effects of children's friendships involve varying access to social support, school-based interventions should compensate for the scarcity of support following the lack of childhood friends.

Within the context of the school class, children attain a social position in the peer hierarchy to which varying amounts of status are attached. Several studies have shown that children’s peer status is associated with a wide range of social and health-related outcomes. These studies commonly target separate outcomes, paying little attention to the fact that such circumstances are likely to go hand in hand. The overarching aim of the present study was therefore to examine the impact of childhood peer status on the clustering of living conditions in adulthood. Based on a 1953 cohort born in Stockholm, Sweden, multinomial regression analysis demonstrated that children who had lower peer status also had exceedingly high risks of ending up in more problem-burdened clusters as adults. Moreover, these associations remained after adjusting for a variety of family-related circumstances. We conclude that peer status constitutes a central aspect of children’s upbringing with important consequences for subsequent life chances, over and above the influences originating from the family.

Within the school-class context, children attain a social position in the peer hierarchy to which varying amounts of status are attached. Studies have shown that peer status – i.e. the degree of acceptance and likeability among classmates – is associated with adult health. However, these studies have generally paid little attention to the fact that health problems are likely to coincide with other adverse circumstances within the individual. The overarching aim of the current study was therefore to examine the impact of childhood peer status on the clustering of social, economic, and health-related circumstances in adulthood. Using a 1953 cohort born in Stockholm, Sweden (n = 14,294), four outcome profiles in adulthood were identified by means of latent class analysis: ‘Average’, ‘Low education’, ‘Unemployment’, and ‘Social assistance recipiency and mental health problems’. Multinomial regression analysis demonstrated that those with lower peer status had exceedingly higher risks of later ending up in the more adverse clusters. This association remained after adjusting for a variety of family-related and individual factors. We conclude that peer status constitutes a central aspect of children's upbringing with important consequences for life chances.

The study investigates inequalities in access to social capital based on social class origin and immigration background and examines the role of transnational ties in explaining these differences. Social capital is measured with a position generator methodology that separates between national and transnational contacts in a sample of young adults in Sweden with three parental backgrounds: at least one parent born in Iran or Yugoslavia, or two Sweden-born parents. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents is associated with higher levels of social capital. Children of immigrants are found to have a greater access to social capital compared to individuals with native background, and the study shows that this is related to transnational contacts, parents' education and social class in their country of origin. Children of immigrants tend to have more contacts abroad, while there is little difference in the amount of contacts living in Sweden across the three groups. It is concluded that knowledge about immigration group resources help us predict its member's social capital, but that the analysis also needs to consider how social class trajectories and migration jointly structure national and transnational contacts.

This study investigates technical efficiency and productivity for Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs). One identified problem in previous research concerns adjusting efficiency scores for input quality. This problem is avoided using grades from upper-secondary schools. A second problem concerns heterogeneity with respect to subjects and institutions between HEIs. Using the Swedish national resource allocation system, students are weighted according to subject. For research production, a bibliometric index that allows for differences in publication tradition is used. A third problem when using the data envelopment analysis approach is the lack of statistical inference. Bootstrapping is used to approach this problem. The results indicate an average inefficiency of 12% and a productivity increase of around 1.7% per year.

Previous studies, mostly from Anglo-Saxon countries, find a positive correlation between the presence of young children in the household and self-employment probabilities among women. This has been seen as an indication of women with young children choosing self-employment as a way of balancing work and family commitments. This paper studies the relationship between children and female self-employment in a country with family friendly policies and a generous welfare system: Sweden. The initial hypothesis is that we will not find evidence of a positive effect of children on self-employment among Swedish women since there are other institutions in place aiming at facilitating the combination of work and family. Using Swedish register data for the period 2004-2008 we do, however, find that the presence of young children increases the probability of choosing self-employment also among Swedish women. The effect is strongest for women with very young children, 0-3 years of age. These results also hold in a panel data model that takes individual unobserved heterogeneity into account. We also analyze time-use data and find, contrary to what has been found in many other countries, that self-employed women spend more, or as much, time on market work than wage-earning women. This raises doubts about whether women in Sweden chose self-employment as a way of balancing work and family commitments.

It is well established that non-western immigrants in Sweden are more likely to be self-employed than natives. Whether there is also a difference in the exit rate out of self-employment remains an unexplored question. Using panel data for the period 1998–2002, this study analyzes the exit rates by looking at all exits, and also at exits to different labor market states. We find that the exit rate is about 7% points higher among non-western immigrants than among natives and exits to unemployment is 14% points higher. Decomposing these differences, we find that differences in industry and earlier labor market status are important explanatory factors.

This paper analyzes the timing between self-employment entry and first child birth among Swedish women, using register data for the cohort of women born between 1970 and 1975. We use longitudinal data, where we observe self-employment entry, childbirths, and self-employment outcomes during the period 1995 to 2013. The main research question is whether women who have children when entering self-employment perform less well compared to women who do not have children at the time of self-employment entry. One reason to expect differences in outcomes is that childless women are less time constrained and could potentially invest more time in the business, which could affect outcomes. We find, contrary to our hypothesis, that women who had a child at the time of self-employment entry have higher incomes, higher revenues and more employees in their firms, while we find no difference in the exit rate out of self-employment.

During recent years we have observed that non-western immigrants are overrepresented among the self-employed in Sweden. A reason for this might be the difficulties faced by immigrants in the labour market. The unemployment rate among non-western immigrants in Sweden is higher than among natives with similar human capital characteristics. While this is a well-established result, we do not know much about how self-employed immigrants perform economically compared to their native counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the incomes of self-employed immigrants and natives in Sweden. We will also discuss possible explanations for the income gap we find. We use Swedish register data for the period 1998 to 2002 and the population studied consists of individuals who have been continuously self-employed during this period. By performing the analysis on this group of self-employed we get a measure of the difference among the long-term self-employed. The outcome of interest is the average income over the period. Income regressions are estimated using both OLS and quantile regressions. We find that self-employed immigrants receive significantly lower incomes than their native counterparts when controlling for individual characteristics, industry and start-up year of the firm. The income gap is larger for non-western immigrants than for western immigrants. Quantile regressions show that the native-immigrant income gap is smaller at the top than at the bottom of the income distribution. Several possible explanations for the native-immigrant income gap are discussed. One possible explanation is that immigrants have a lower reservation wage and accepts staying in business receiving a lower income than comparable natives. Another explanation might be that there is discrimination against self-employed immigrants that will lead to lower incomes. There can be consumer discrimination or discrimination from banks and real estate owners.

The utilization and reward of the human capital of immigrants in the labor market of the host country has been studied extensively. Using Swedish register data from 2001–2008, we extend the immigrant educational mismatch literature by analyzing incidence, wage effects and state dependence in overeducation among natives and immigrants. In line with previous research we find a higher incidence and a lower return to overeducation among immigrants indicating that immigrants lose more from being overeducated. We find a high degree of state dependence in overeducation both among natives and immigrants, but considerably higher among immigrants.

The utilization and reward of the human capital of immigrants in the labor market of the host country has been studied extensively. In the Swedish context this question is of great policy relevance due to the high levels of refugee migration and inflow of tied movers. Using Swedish register data covering the period 2001–2008, we analyze the incidence and wage effects of overeducation among non-Western immigrants. We also analyze whether there is state-dependence in overeducation and extend the immigrant educational mismatch literature by investigating whether this is a more severe problem among immigrants than among natives. In line with previous research we find that the incidence of overeducation is higher among immigrants and the return to overeducation is lower indicating that immigrants lose more from being overeducated. We find a high degree of state-dependence in overeducation both among natives and immigrants, but to a higher extent among immigrants.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether intensive counseling and coaching by Public Employment Service (PES) caseworkers improves the employment opportunities of new immigrants in Sweden. This is tested within the framework of introduction programs for new immigrants. A trial introduction program was implemented from October 2006 to June 2008. Within participating municipalities, new immigrants were randomly assigned into treatment (intensive coaching) or control (regular introduction programs). The results indicate that there are significant treatment effects on employment probabilities as well as on participation in intermediate PES training programs.

A Trial Introduction Program (TIP) for newly-arrived immigrants to Sweden was set up in October 2006 in order to meet the main criticisms directed at existing introduction programs. Two primary innovations were introduced, flexible language instruction parallelwith other labor market activities at the Public Employment Service (PES) and intensive counselling and coaching by PES caseworkerswith considerably reduced caseloads. Within participating municipalities, newly-arrived immigrants were randomly assigned into TIP or the control group, i.e., regular introduction programs. Results indicate small but significant treatment effects on the probability of attaining regular employment and subsidized employment. In addition,TIP participants were considerably more likely to enter intermediate PES training programs. Hazard rates into PES training programs were also significantly higher for participants in TIP in comparison to participants in regular introduction programs.

A Trial Introduction Program (TIP) for newly-arrived immigrants to Sweden was implemented from October 2006 to June 2008 in order to meet the main criticisms directed at existing introduction programs. Two primary innovations were introduced, flexible language instruction parallel with other labor market activities at the Public Employment Service (PES) and intensive counseling and coaching by PES caseworkers with considerably reduced caseloads. Within participating municipalities, newly-arrived immigrants were randomly assigned into TIP (treatment) or regular introduction programs (control). Results indicate significant treatment effects on the probability of attaining regular employment as well as the probability of entering intermediate PES training programs. Hazard rates into PES training programs were also significantly higher for participants in TIP in comparison to participants in regular introduction programs.